“Fulkari?” Keltryn said, when some time had passed in silence. “Are you all right?”
“More or less, yes.—What about going for a swim?”
“I was just going to suggest the same thing.”
“Fine,” Fulkari said. “Let’s go.” And then, to change the subject: “Are you still keeping up with your fencing, now that Septach Melayn’s gone to the Labyrinth?”
“Somewhat,” Keltryn said. “I meet twice a week in the gymnasium with one of the boys from Septach Melayn’s class.”
“Audhari, is it? The one from Stoienzar that you told me about?”
“Audhari, yes.”
That was interesting. Fulkari waited for Keltryn to say something more about Audhari, but nothing was forthcoming. She scrutinized Keltryn’s face with care, wondering if some telltale sign of embarrassment or discomfort would show through, something that would reveal that her little virgin sister had finally taken herself a lover. But none of that was visible. Either Keltryn was a more accomplished actress than Fulkari had given her credit for being, or there was nothing more than innocent fencing-practice going on between her and this Audhari.
Too bad, she thought. It was time for a little romance in Keltryn’s life.
Then abruptly Keltryn said, as they reached the pool, “Tell me, Fulkari. Do you know Dinitak Barjazid at all well?”
Fulkari frowned. “Dinitak? What makes you ask about him?”
“I’m asking because I’m asking.” And now, to her immense surprise, Fulkari saw the signs of tension that had been absent when Audhari’s name had come up. “Is he a friend of yours?” Keltryn said.
“In a very casual way, yes. You can’t spend much time around Dekkeret without getting to know Dinitak too. He’s usually to be found not very far from Dekkeret, you know. But he and I have never been particularly close. Acquaintances, really, rather than friends.—Will you tell me what this is about, Keltryn? Or is it something I’m not supposed to know?”
Keltryn now wore an expression of elaborate indifference. “He interests me, that’s all. I happened to run into him yesterday over by Lord Haspar’s Rotunda, when I was on my way to fencing practice, and we talked for a couple of minutes. That’s all there is. Don’t get any ideas, Fulkari! All we did was talk.”
“Ideas? What ideas would you mean?”
“He’s very—unusual, I thought,” Keltryn said. She seemed to be measuring her words very carefully. “There’s something fierce about him—something mysterious and stern. I suppose it’s because he’s from Suvrael originally. Every Suvraelinu I’ve ever met has been a little strange. The hot sun must do that to them. But he’s strange in an interesting way, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” Fulkari said, calibrating the gleam that had come into her sister’s eyes just then. She knew as well as anyone did what a gleam like that in the eyes of a seventeen-year-old girl meant.
Dinitak? How odd. How interesting. How unexpected.
Dekkeret said, “I owe you an apology, Fulkari.”
Fulkari, out of breath after a long frantic sprint through the interminable coils and twists of Lord Stiamot’s Library, was slow to reply. She had arrived twenty minutes late for her audience with the Coronal, having taken one wrong turn after another in the endless miles of the collection. She had never seen so many books in her life as she had just now while running through those corridors. She had no idea that there were that many books in existence. Had anyone ever read any of them? Would there be no end to these thousands of shelves? Finally an ancient, fossilized-looking librarian had taken pity on her and guided her through the maze to Lord Dekkeret’s secluded little study in the Methirasp Long Hall.
“An apology?” she said at last, if only to be saying something at all.
Dekkeret’s desk was a barrier between them. It was piled high with official documents, long parchment sheets formidably festooned in ribbons and seals. They seemed to be marching across the brightly polished surface of the desk toward him, an encroaching army demanding his attention.
Dekkeret looked tired and ill at ease. Today he wore no fine regal robes, only a simple gray tunic loosely belted at the waist.
“An apology, yes, Fulkari.” He appeared to be forcing the words out. “For having drawn you into such an unhappy, impossible relationship.”
She found his statement baffling. “Impossible? Perhaps. But I was the one that made it that way. Why should you feel that you have to apologize for anything?—And why call it ‘unhappy,’ Dekkeret? Was it really such an unhappy relationship? Is that how it seemed to you?”
“Not for a long while. But you have to agree that it ended unhappily.”
The phrase went reverberating through her soul. It ended. It ended. It ended.
Yes. Of course it had ended. But she was unwilling to hear the words themselves. Those few crisp syllables, spoken aloud, had the finality of a descending blade.
Fulkari waited a moment for the impact to lessen. “Even so,” she said. “I still don’t understand what it is that you feel you need to apologize for.”
“You couldn’t possibly know. But that’s why I asked you to come here today. I can’t conceal the truth from you any longer.”
Restlessly she said, “What are you talking about, Dekkeret?”
She could see him groping for words, struggling to organize his reply. He seemed to have aged five years since they had last been together. His face was pale and drawn, and there were shadows under his eyes, and his broad shoulders were hunched as though sitting up straight was too much of an effort for him today. This was a Dekkeret she had never seen before, this tired, suddenly indecisive man. She wanted to reach out to him, to stroke his brow, to give him whatever comfort she could.
Hesitantly he said, “When I first met you, Fulkari, I was instantly attracted to you. Do you remember? I must have looked like a man who had been struck by a bolt of lightning.”
Fulkari smiled. “I remember, yes. You stared and stared and stared. You were staring so hard that I began to wonder if there was something wrong with the way I was dressed.”
“Nothing was wrong. I simply couldn’t stop staring, that was all. Then you moved along, and I asked someone who you were, and I arranged to have you invited to a levee that the Lady Varaile was holding the following week. Where I had you brought forward to be introduced to me.”
“And you stared some more.”
“Yes. Surely I did. Do you remember what I said, then?”
She had no clear memory of that. Whatever he had told her then, it was lost to her now, swept away in the confusion and excitement of that first moment. Uncertainly she replied, “You asked if you could see me again, I suppose.”
“That was later. What did I say first?”
“Do you really suppose that I can remember everything in such detail? It was so long ago, Dekkeret!”
“Well, I remember,” he said. “I asked you if you were of Normork blood. No, you replied: Sipermit. I told you then that you reminded me very much of someone I had known in Normork long ago—my cousin Sithelle, in fact. Do you recall any of that? An extraordinary resemblance, your eyes, your hair, your mouth and chin, your long arms and legs—so much like Sithelle that I thought I was seeing her ghost.”
“Sithelle is dead, then?”
“These twenty years. Slain in the streets of Normork by an assassin who was trying to reach Prestimion. I was there. She died in my arms. I never realized until many years later how much I had loved her. And then, when I saw you that day at court—looking at you, knowing nothing whatever about you, thinking only, Here is Sithelle restored to me—”
He broke off. He glanced away, abashed.
Fulkari felt her cheeks flaming. This was worse than humiliating: it was infuriating. “You weren’t attracted to me for myself?” she asked. There was heat in her voice, too, that she could not suppress. “You were drawn to me only because I looked like somebody else you once had known? Oh, Dekkeret—Dekkeret—!”
>
In a barely audible tone he said, “I told you that I owed you an apology, Fulkari.”
Tears crowded into her eyes—tears of rage. “So I was never anything to you but a kind of flesh-and-blood replica of someone else you weren’t able to have? When you looked at me you saw Sithelle, and when you kissed me you were kissing Sithelle, and when you went to bed with me you were—”
“No, Fulkari. That’s not how it was at all.” Dekkeret was speaking more forcefully now. “When I told you I loved you, it was you I was telling it to—Fulkari of Sipermit. When I held you in my arms, it was Fulkari of Sipermit that I was holding. Sithelle and I never were lovers. We probably never would have been, even if she had lived. When I asked you to marry me, it was you I was asking, not Sithelle’s ghost.”
“Then why all this talk of apologies?”
“Because the thing I can’t deny is that I was drawn to you originally for the wrong reason, no matter what happened later. That instant attraction I felt, before we had ever spoken a word to each other—it was because some foolish part of me was whispering that you were Sithelle reborn, that a second chance was being given to me. I knew even then that it was idiotic. But I was caught—trapped by my own ridiculous fantasy. So I pursued you. Not because you were you, not at first, but because you looked so much like Sithelle. The woman I fell in love with, though, was you. The woman I asked to marry me: you. You, Fulkari.”
“And when Fulkari refused you, was that like losing Sithelle a second time?” she asked. Her tone was one of mere curiosity, only. It surprised her how quickly the anger was beginning to fade.
“No. No. It wasn’t like that at all,” said Dekkeret. “Sithelle was like a sister to me: I never would have married her. When you refused me—and I knew you would; you had already given me a million indications that you would—it tore me apart, because I knew I was losing you. And I saw how my original crazy notion of using you as a replacement for Sithelle had led me step by step into falling in love with a real living woman who didn’t happen to want to be my wife. I wasted three years of our lives, Fulkari. That’s what I’m sorry about. The thing that drew me to you in the first place was a fantasy, a will-o’-the-wisp, but I was caught by it as though by a metal trap; and it held me long enough for me to fall in love with the true Fulkari, who wasn’t able to return my love, and so—a waste, Fulkari, all a waste—”
“That isn’t so, Dekkeret.” She spoke firmly, and met his gaze evenly, calmly. Every trace of anger was gone from her now. A new assurance had come over her.
“You don’t think so?”
“Maybe it was a waste for you. But not for me. What I felt for you was real. It still is.” Fulkari paused only a moment, then plunged boldly onward. What was there to lose? “I love you, Dekkeret. And not because you remind me of anyone else.”
He seemed astonished. “You love me still?”
“When did I ever tell you I had stopped?”
“You seemed furious, just a moment or two back, when I was telling you that what first led me to pursue you was the image of Sithelle that I still carried in my mind.”
“What woman would be pleased to hear such a thing? But why should I allow it to continue to matter? Sithelle’s long gone. And so is the boy who may or may not have been in love with her—even he wasn’t sure—a long time ago. But you and I are still here.”
“For whatever that might be worth,” said Dekkeret.
“Perhaps it could be worth a great deal indeed,” said Fulkari.—“Tell me something, Dekkeret: just how difficult would it really be, do you think, to be the Coronal’s wife?”
14
“My lord?” Teotas said, peering through the open doorway.
He stood at the threshold of the threshold of the Coronal’s official suite, that great room whose giant curving window revealed the breathtaking abyss of open space that abutted this side of the Castle.
Dekkeret, when Teotas had asked him for this meeting, had proposed that Teotas come to him in the chamber in the Methirasp Long Hall that he seemed to be using as his main office these days. But Teotas had felt uncomfortable with that. It was irregular. This was the room that he associated with the grandeur and might of the Coronal Lord. Again and again during the reign of his brother Prestimion had he met here with the Coronal in some time of crisis. What he wanted to discuss with Lord Dekkeret now was a matter of the highest concern, and it was in this room, only in this room, that he wanted to discuss it. One did not ordinarily make demands upon Coronals. But Dekkeret had yielded gracefully to his request.
“Come in, Teotas,” Dekkeret said. “Sit down.”
“My lord,” Teotas said a second time, and offered the starburst salute.
The Coronal was seated behind the splendid ancient desk, a single polished slab of red palisander wood with a natural grain resembling the starburst emblem that Coronals since Lord Dizimaule’s day had used—a span of five hundred years or more. For Teotas there was something of a shock in seeing Lord Dekkeret actually sitting at that desk that Lord Prestimion had occupied for so many years. But he needed that shock. It was important for him to remind himself at every opportunity that presented itself that the great imperial shift had occurred once more, that Prestimion had gone off to the Labyrinth to become Pontifex, that this beautiful desk, which had been Lord Confalume’s before it was Prestimion’s, and Lord Prankipin’s before it was Confalume’s, was Lord Dekkeret’s now.
Dekkeret fitted it well: better, in truth, than Prestimion had. The desk had always seemed too huge for the small-framed Prestimion, but the much bigger Dekkeret was a more appropriate match for the desk’s majestic dimensions. He was dressed in the traditional royal way, robes of green and gold with ermine trim, and he radiated such strength and confidence now that Teotas, weary unto exhaustion and close to the limits of his strength, felt suddenly aged and feeble in the presence of this man who was only a few years younger than he was himself.
“So,” Dekkeret said. “Here we are.”
“Here we are, yes.”
“You look tired, Teotas. Dinitak tells me that you’ve been sleeping badly of late.”
“I’d rather have it that I wasn’t sleeping at all. When I give myself over to sleep it brings me the most terrible dreams—dreams so frightful I can barely believe that my mind is capable of inventing such things.”
“Give me an example.”
Teotas shook his head. “No point in trying. I’d have difficulty describing it. Not much remains in my mind after I awaken except a sense that I’ve been through a terrifying experience. I see strange hideous landscapes, monsters, demons. But I won’t try to portray them. What seems so terrifying to the dreamer himself has no power over anyone else.—And in any event I haven’t come here to talk about my dreams, my lord. There’s the matter of my pending appointment as High Counsellor.”
“What about it?” Dekkeret asked, in so cool and casual a way that Teotas could see that he had been anticipating some discussion of that very topic. “I remind you, Teotas, I’ve had no formal acceptance of the post from you.”
“Nor will you,” Teotas said. “I’ve come to you to ask you to withdraw my name from consideration.”
Quite clearly Dekkeret had anticipated that. The Coronal’s voice was still very calm as he said, “I would not have chosen you, Teotas, if I didn’t think that you were the man most suited for the post.”
“I’m cognizant of that. It’s a matter of the deepest regret to me that I can’t accept this great honor. But I can’t.”
“May I have a reason?”
“Must I provide one, my lord?”
“Not ‘must,’ no. But I do think some explanation would be appropriate.”
“My lord—”
Teotas could not go on, for fear of what he might say. He felt a stirring, deep within himself, of the famous temper that once had been so widely feared. Why would Dekkeret not simply release him from the offer and let him be? But the heat of his fury had been much diminished by time
and the weariness that comes with despair. He was able now to find nothing more within himself than a crackle of annoyance, and that quickly passed, leaving him drained and desolate and numb.
He covered his face with his outspread hands. After a little while he said again, “My lord—” in a faint, indistinct way. Dekkeret waited, saying nothing. “My lord, do you see how I look? How I conduct myself? Is this the Teotas you remember from earlier times? From six months ago, even? Do I seem to you like a man fit to undertake the duties of the High Counsellor of the Realm? Can’t you see that I’m half out of my mind? More than half. Only a fool would choose an unstable person like me for such an important post. And you are anything but a fool.”
“I do see that you seem ill, Teotas. But illnesses can be cured.—Have you discussed this matter of refusing the post with his majesty your brother?”
“Not at all. I don’t see any need to burden Prestimion with my troubles.”
“If the Divine had granted me a brother,” Dekkeret said, “I think I would be ready and willing to hear of any troubles of his, at any hour of the day or night. And I think it would be the same for Prestimion.”
“Nevertheless, I will not go to him.” This was becoming a torment, now. “In the name of the Divine, Dekkeret! Find yourself some other High Counsellor, and let me be done with it! Surely I’m not indispensable.”
It seemed to occur to the Coronal, finally, that Teotas was in agony. Gently he said, “No one is indispensable, including the Pontifex and the Coronal. And I’ll withdraw the appointment, if you give me no choice about it.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Teotas rose as if to go.
But Dekkeret was not done with him. “I should tell you, though, that Dinitak believes that these dreams of yours, which must truly be appalling, are not the work of your own brain at all. He thinks they’re being sent in by an enemy from outside—a kinsman of his, a Barjazid, he suspects, who is using some version of the thought-control helmet that we once employed against Dantirya Sambail.”